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Ontological Readings: Politics & Feelings

This is really going to be the most weird topic I have ever written, as in it I try to compress perception about the very ontological status (‘being’) of politics and feelings. Both of their statuses are different, but still I would like to record the confrontation in them in this blog here.

Politics is primarily aimed at the welfare of the community or a nation. Its sole objective is to provide services to the general public — ideally. If political parties fail to deliver promises made in the social contract, they are out of business.

Philosophy, literature, and politics are intricately interrelated. Philosophy is a set of subjective logical arguments that are primarily propounded by philosophers as probable solutions to some specific problematic conditions. For a single human condition, different philosophers have propounded different philosophies. So, while none of them might be perfect, each of them does have a point to make.

Philosophies are source of literature and art too. Each philosophical principle is composed of experiences gained from human existence. Literature thus is itself a source and product of philosophy. Like art, which portrays human conditions in words, rhythm, colors and screens, and argues in favor of one or other philosophies, political leaders also view and propose solutions to human problems.

Art is reflection of human condition. The reflection’s rendering differs according the type of mirrors (philosophies) used. Philosophy provides ideals and principles to correct those conditions for making human life better. And political parties use any of these political philosophies, which they find convincing and capable of bringing about progressive changes, as their guiding principle.

One noticeable thing about philosophers is that they are dreamers and great writers. While ‘junkyard philosophers’ like the kind of Kerouac and Bukowski philosophize of the existing humiliating conditions of social outcast in their novels and poems, Karl Marx in his The Communist Manifesto did propose a solution to materialize the desires of all human beings, except a ‘few’ elite. His logic is simple and real good easy to understand.

“You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.”

All human are born alike. None are rich or poor. Nature is equal to all of them. But there are some people who have become rich by taking the share of money and other resources that belongs to the common people- poor and downtrodden. They invested this money as capital and exploited them more and more. The rich have became richer and the poor have became poorer. This continues.

So how to address this?

Simple. Snatch away whatever is taken from you. Make a government, which looks after your basic needs while you work for it. You don’t have to find jobs, pay your doctor, or earn property. You belong to the nation; all your property belongs to the nation. The nation is you; you are the nation.

That is Eden- Paradise. Damn it man. But it has been damned.

Why? Now comes feeling- human emotions and tendency of philanthropy. We humans are by nature animal. We want to be part of the herd so that the hyenas do not catch us alone. We are ready to be part of the community and provide it our muscles as long as it allows us to graze us as much as we can and where ever we want.

We have feelings for each other. And that separates us from the rest of animals on earth. But we do also have greed that again puts us back with those animals. The very ‘being’ of emotions is caring and giving. Its objective is not to ask for return, its objective is to flame out to heat out others. We as humans do that, time and again, by rising above our self-centric interests.

The ‘being’ of politics is essentially to provide better living conditions to humans. Politics is essentially all about ‘getting’. There is no space for sacrifices in politics. No one likes to loose or give up his or her belongings for a not known ‘no-body’. The ‘few elite’ term in Marxism, which had pulled so many followers, itself became the very cause of its failure. When Marxist regimes rose to power, its supporters were shocked to find out that they too were one of the ‘few elite’, because there were people who were even poorer than them. It was a boomerang.

Now, they were impressed with the paradise created by Marx, which I would like to call a ‘literary masterpiece’ instead of political treatise, but they forgot that they too had to pay the price for creating the Paradise. However some nations did try doing that, but they too were left in lurk. They realized that they had pulled down the aristocrats and handed their own labor and own property to the their leader-of-the-poor only for giving birth to create a new set of ‘communist elite’—The People’s Elite. Damned!

Marx’s literature is a reflection of the lost Eden. A perfect Eden is not possible on this earth, if it would have been, it would have never fallen from the grace of God. Satan rules us, in the dark realm, in the form of greed. Feelings are important for remaining human and for helping others to remain human. Only feeling or to be precise humanity is the means through which we can and have been bringing respite to our lives in this otherwise stranger world.